59th National Amateur Golf: Pak pair clinch int’l trophy

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan pair has also won the international trophy in the 59th National Amateur Golf following penultimate day’s action at the Islamabad Club course Saturday.

Pakistan’s Taimoor Khan and Zohaib Asif aggregated 303 over two days leaving Sri Lankan pair of Punith de Silva and Udesh C Perera behind by three strokes. Sri Lanka pair aggregated 307 over 36 holes of golf.

Pakistan earlier on the opening day also won the JR Jayewardene Trophy leaving Sri Lanka pair well behind.

Country’s top amateur golfer Ghazanfar Mehmood held on his lead at the top of the leaderboard with a high quality second round golf that fetched him four under 68. Following his score of par in the first round, he was seen at his best in the second where he notched up the best score of the tournament so far.

His aggregate score of 140 saw him leading with a clear five strokes margin to his nearest rival Taimoor Khan who carded a score of par 72 on the second day to get an aggregate score of one over 145 for two days. Tariq Mehmood (147) is further two-stroke behind on aggregate. Tariq carded two over for the second round following complete wash out on the opening in the National Championship.

Ghazanfar was seen carding three birdies at a trot. He got birdie on hole No 4, 5, 6 and then again on ninth. He also sunk bogie on the 8th hole. Besides playing pars on the back nine, Ghazanfar chipped in birdie on Hole 13 to get a creditable four under for the day.

Federal Golf Association has won the inter-association title, beating KPK Golf Association behind on the second position. Umar Khokhar, Raja Israr, Zubair Hussain and Tariq Mehmood combined in to get a score of 450. AQ Bokhari, Dr Hamza Khattak, Khalid Khan and Taimoor Khan represented KPK that managed 475. The top three golfers score was accounted for while finalizing the aggregate score.